In Vincent Trocheck’s eyes, most games between two competing teams at this point in the season have a similar flow to the playoffs.
When the Rangers defeated the Lightning on Wednesday night, head coach Peter Laviolette noticed that.
Trocheck agreed.
There weren’t many scoring opportunities or goals, and there weren’t many ways to break through the entrenched defensive structures.
It was an encore to the Rangers’ fast-paced game against the Avalanche, which also ended in a victory. The game against the Avalanche was one of those games where there could be “85 attempts each,” Laviolette said.
In both wins, the Blueshirts allowed just one goal.
They have allowed more than two goals in regulation just twice in the last 10 games, but have allowed eight of the next 15 games.
The improvement on defense helped the Rangers win their third straight game against the Blackhawks on Friday.
Several statistical areas improved significantly from their season lows. For others, it’s still one step at a time.
Laviolette said every NHL campaign has its ups and downs, and Trocheck believes the Rangers’ defense this time around is a return to the foundation they built after learning Laviolette’s system. he said.
“It was fresh in my mind because we just came back from training camp and we learned a lot there,” Trocheck told the Post after Thursday’s practice. “I think we got out of that a little bit in the middle of the year. I think we’re getting back on track. We’re fine-tuning the systems we worked on at the beginning of the year a little bit more.”
The transition began when Laviolette was hired. He ran a 1-3-1 neutral zone trap that quickly paid off during the Rangers’ early-season blowout.
According to Larry Brooks of the Post, the first nine games were when the Blueshirts ranked first in shots, second in scoring chances and fifth in goals per 60 minutes at even strength. He showed what he can accomplish defensively over a full season.
After that, the sample size continued to grow as the Blueshirts rose to the top of the Metropolitan Division and then the league as a whole.
However, there were growing pains. The Rangers deviated from that success and their record declined as a result.
Their points per 60 minutes were the fifth-worst in the NHL (3.01) from Dec. 12 to Jan. 13, when they were 7-8.
According to Natural Stat Trick, they are a middling team in most other defensive categories.
In some cases, the Rangers’ struggles at that point were due to chasing and pulling goaltenders Igor Shesterkin and Jonathan Quick, risking an empty net for a comeback, and finally allowing a goal. It could have been, Laviolette said.
However, at times they continued to make costly mistakes, allowing their opponents to convert limited chances into goals.
Laviolette said things have changed in recent weeks. It didn’t always lead to victory. But on Wednesday, Laviolette thought the Rangers were strong in their “stick-on-puck” defense against shots, passes and anything else when the Lightning had possession near the offensive zone. The Blueshirts also prevented Tampa Bay’s onslaught from sneaking up on them.
“If you have a team that’s flying around all the time and cheating and having weird rushes going back and forth, you better figure out how to get into that game, play that game, and defend that game. Good,” Laviolette said Wednesday. “And there are also very tight spaces where you have to fight for a lot of space.”
Everything is still a work in progress, Trocheck said. This doesn’t mean the defense has been fixed or that it won’t fall into a new rut at some point before the end of the regular season.
The Blueshirts’ scoring chances per 60 minutes (25.56), goals per 60 minutes (2.06) and shots per 60 minutes (25.82) have all decreased over the past 10 games.
In fact, they are moving closer to the type of defensive team announced at the beginning of the season.
“We weren’t just under siege,” Laviolette said. “We’re going to end up making obvious mistakes that we shouldn’t have made or didn’t need to make. Cleaning them up and taking them out of the game can make it even tougher.
“So I think we’ve done a pretty good job of weeding out some of those big mistakes recently.”
